Parking requirements could become a problem: will the Africa Cup of Nations be a problem for the FCZ?

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The African Cup of Nations was actually supposed to take place last summer, but the tournament was postponed due to the monsoon season in host country Ivory Coast. Now the best countries will compete in the continental championship from January 11, 2024.

However, the new schedule poses a major problem for clubs: many players will not participate in training and competition activities for a few weeks because they are called up for the tournament. The clubs have an obligation to release the players and must therefore release the players. For example, at Bundesliga leader Bayer Leverkusen, five top players will probably miss the first games of the second half of the season.

Three YB stars can hope to be included

And what is it like in Switzerland? There are potentially around 50 players in the Super League who could participate in the African Cup of Nations, including dual nationality. But it’s more likely that there are actually about two handfuls. If you look at the final selections of the participating countries, there were only seven players from the top Swiss league, three of them from champions YB.

Meschack Elia (26, DR Congo), Mohamed Camara (23, Guinea) and Ebrima Colley (23, Gambia) traveled to the national team in November and also have a chance to participate in the tournament. There are also Saidy Janko (28, Gambia) and Miguel Chaiwa (19, Zambia), while Cheikh Niasse (23) is unlikely to play a role for Senegal. Nevertheless: the people of Bern are threatened with hiring top performers.

It is believed that “several YB players will be unavailable,” as the reigning champions told Blick. “We are happy for every player who is called up to his national team. At the same time, we are of course sorry that we will miss them.”

FCZ is taking it easy

For FC Zurich, the current leaders of the Super League, the tournament could be a huge mess. There are three top players in the starting eleven who can certainly be called up for the national team. If that’s the case, it would be a major setback in the championship race.

Jonathan Okita (27, DR Congo) leads the goalscoring chart, Cheick Condé (23, Guinea) and Ifeanyi Mathew (26, Nigeria) keep the threads together in midfield and form the control center of the FCZ. They are three of the six players who featured in each of the fifteen league matches (alongside Brecher, Kamberi and Boranjasevic).

Zurich’s hopes: Mathew has never played for the senior national team, Condé has not played since September 2022. Only Okita will be on display this year. The city club could not refuse a possible selection anyway – and, like YB, would not even think about it if it were possible: “FC Zurich would never do this.” After all, it is nothing new if there are no players present because of the African Cup of Nations, it is ‘part of the game’.

What about the other Super League teams?

But the competition’s top duo are not alone; other clubs also have to prepare for one or two absences. For example, Servette has eight players who could play for an African national team (including dual citizenship). However, only Jérôme Onguéné (25) and Gaël Ondoua (28) have ten and seven international matches for Cameroon.

It is not known when the final selections for the Africa Cup will be released. The African Football Federation has not set a deadline, at least not publicly. It is assumed that the lists will be sent at the end of December.

Source : Blick